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Monitoring - Affirmed MCC Data Product overview

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The Monitoring - Affirmed MCC Data Product supports data analysis and insight for operators of the Affirmed Networks Mobile Content Cloud (MCC). It ingests performance management data (performance statistics) from MCC network elements. It then digests and enriches this data to provide visualizations for the operator and to provide access to the underlying enriched data for operator data scientists.

Background

The Affirmed Networks Mobile Content Cloud (MCC) is a virtualized Evolved Packet Core (vEPC) that can provide the following functionality.

  • Serving Gateway (SGW) routes and forwards user data packets between the RAN and the core network.
  • Packet Data Network Gateway (PGW) provides interconnect between the core network and external IP networks.
  • Gi-LAN Gateway (GIGW) provides subscriber-aware or subscriber-unaware value-added services (VAS) without enabling MCC gateway services, allowing operators to take advantage of VAS while still using their incumbent gateway.
  • Gateway GPRS support node (GGSN) provides interworking between the GPRS network and external packet switched networks.
  • Serving GPRS support node and MME (SGSN/MME) is responsible for the delivery of data packets to and from the mobile stations within its geographical service area.
  • Control and User Plane Separation (CUPS), an LTE enhancement that separates control and user plane function to allow independent scaling of functions.

The Monitoring - Affirmed MCC Data Product supports all of the MCC variants described.

Data types

The following data type is provided as part of the Monitoring - Affirmed MCC Data Product.

  • pmstats contains performance management data reported by the MCC management node, giving insight into the performance characteristics of the MCC network elements.

Setup

To use the Monitoring - Affirmed MCC Data Product:

  1. Deploy the Data Product by following Create an Azure Operator Insights Data Product.
  2. Configure your network to produce performance management data, as described in Required network configuration.
  3. Set up ingestion (data upload) from your network. For example, you could use the Azure Operator Insights ingestion agent or connect Azure Data Factory to your Data Product.

Required network configuration

Configure the EMS server to export performance management data to a remote server. If you're using the Azure Operator Insights ingestion agent, the remote server must be an SFTP server. If you're providing your own ingestion agent, the remote server needs to be accessible by your ingestion agent.

  1. Obtain the IP address, user, and password of the remote server.
  2. Configure the transfer of EMS statistics to a remote server by following Copying Performance Management Statistics Files to Destination Server in the Acuitas User's Guide.

Important

Increase the frequency of the cron job by reducing the timeInterval argument from 15 (default) to 5 minutes.

Required ingestion configuration

Use the information in this section to configure your ingestion method. Refer to the documentation for your chosen method to determine how to supply these values.

Data type Required container name Requirements for data
pmstats pmstats Performance data from MCC nodes. File names must start with the dataset name. For example, WORKFLOWPERFSTATSSLOT data must be ingested in files whose names start with WORKFLOWPERFSTATSSLOT.

If you're using the Azure Operator Insights ingestion agent:

  • Configure the ingestion agent to use SFTP pull from the SFTP server.
  • We recommend the following configuration settings in addition to the (required) settings in the previous table.
Information Configuration setting for Azure Operator Ingestion agent Recommended value
Settling time source.sftp_pull.filtering.settling_time 60s (upload files that haven't been modified in the last 60 seconds)
Schedule for checking for new files source.sftp_pull.scheduling.cron 0 */5 * * * * * (every 5 minutes)

Tip

For more information about all the configuration options for the ingestion agent, see Configuration reference for Azure Operator Insights ingestion agent.

Requirements for the Azure Operator Insights ingestion agent

The Azure Operator Insights ingestion agent collects files from ingestion pipelines that you configure on it. Ingestion pipelines include the details of the SFTP server, the files to collect from it and how to manage those files.

You must choose how to set up your agents, pipelines, and VMs using the following rules.

  • Pipelines must not overlap, meaning that they must not collect the same files from the same servers.
  • You must configure each pipeline on exactly one agent. If you configure a pipeline on multiple agents, Azure Operator Insights receives duplicate data.
  • Each agent must run on a separate VM.
  • The number of agents and therefore VMs also depends on:
    • The scale and redundancy characteristics of your deployment.
    • The number and size of the files, and how frequently the files are copied.

As a guide, this table documents the throughput that the recommended specification on a standard D4s_v3 Azure VM can achieve.

File count File size (KiB) Time (seconds) Throughput (Mbps)
64 16,384 6 1,350
1,024 1,024 10 910
16,384 64 80 100
65,536 16 300 25

For example, if you need to collect from two file sources, you could:

  • Deploy one VM with one agent, configured with two pipelines. Each pipeline collects from one file source.
  • Deploy two VMs, each with one agent. Each agent (and therefore each VM) collects from one file source.

Each Linux VM running the agent must meet the following minimum specifications.

Resource Requirements
OS Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 or later, or Oracle Linux 8.8 or later
vCPUs Minimum 4, recommended 8
Memory Minimum 32 GB
Disk 30 GB
Network Connectivity to the SFTP server and to Azure
Software systemd, logrotate, and zip installed
Other SSH or alternative access to run shell commands
DNS (Preferable) Ability to resolve Microsoft hostnames. If not, you need to perform extra configuration when you set up the agent (described in Map Microsoft hostnames to IP addresses for ingestion agents that can't resolve public hostnames.)

Related content

Note

Affirmed Networks login credentials are required to access the MCC product documentation.